Intel Shutting Down Motherboard Business

Intel has announced plans to get out of the motherboard manufacturing business in the next three years. This surprise move which speaks to the continued fading sales of desktop PC’s, is sure to impact the few remaining IT companies that build and white label PC’s.

Though this may have a small affect on the SMB IT community, as most IT solution providers have stopped building PC’s. The news may have a larger scale affect on companies such as Equus Computer Systems, and Arrow Electronics that rely heavily on Intel as a backbone of their custom build strategies.

Competition in the motherboard space has been fierce with smaller manufacturers driving costs down making manufacturing a low margin business. These smaller manufacturers will have the most to gain from the announcement, especially considering custom build shops such as the ones previously mentioned will need to seek out or further develop their partnerships with these manufacturers.

Haswell Chips, Intel’s fourth Gen processors currently in development, will be the last to receive Intel motherboards. Intel has seen its stock value steadily decline over the last year currently in the low $20’s, which may have helped prompt the timing of the move.

There is no question with the latest move of Dell’s potential private buyout, Best Buy’s similar issues, and now Intel’s latest announcement; the desktop PC business is suffering a downturn. Consumers are opting for mobile devices, notebooks, tablets, and phones over traditional desktop devices. Even businesses are embracing the BYOD movement with more and more devices being integrated into the corporate space.

The future of Intel appears to focus on integrated chips and solutions, which pack computing, memory and graphics all onto a single chip, making them easier to implement into mobile solutions.